SAP Launches SAP® EcoHub – A Community-Powered Solution Marketplace

SAP EcoHub

In a continuing sign of the momentum of its market-leading customer-focused ecosystem, SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced the launch of SAP® EcoHub, an online marketplace that makes it easier for customers to discover, evaluate and buy partner solutions to complement their SAP installations. Further enhancing the value of the SAP ecosystem for customers and partners, SAP EcoHub provides enhanced transparency into the portfolio of solutions that further extend existing SAP investments and engages the community by including user feedback and ratings and demos. The announcement was made at SAP® TechEd 2008, being held in Berlin, Germany, Oct. 14–16.

SAP EcoHub is live today at http://ecohub.sap.com, featuring certified partner offerings, including SAP solution extensions, endorsed-business solutions, and Powered by SAP NetWeaver®, Certified by SAP NetWeaver and Business Objects certified solutions. For SAP solution partners, the addition of SAP EcoHub opens up a completely new channel that extends their reach into new customers and provides an opportunity to differentiate and drive adoption of their offerings.

“SAP EcoHub is an easy to use, single source that will streamline the process for identifying relevant solutions that meet our business needs and work within our existing SAP installation,” said Matt Stultz, vice president, Global Information Technology, Newell Rubbermaid. “This is something I have been seeking for a long time. SAP EcoHub will definitely add tremendous value to both SAP customers and partners.”

Customers around the world are faced with a number of challenges, from adjusting to shifting economic environments to assessing operations and identifying opportunities for streamlining to responding to customer demands and meeting regulatory reporting requirements. Leveraging the strength of their SAP installations and the flexibility of the SAP NetWeaver technology platform, customers are taking the opportunity to utilize third-party IT solutions to better address these challenges and differentiate themselves in the marketplace. The SAP ecosystem provides customers access to complementary solutions and offerings that work best for their installation.

Live now, SAP EcoHub is an online solution marketplace that enables customers to:

• Accelerate discovery with the ability to navigate the site by industry or solution, search by key words, sort by relevance or partner, monitor solutions that are “most viewed” and research offerings that are “highest rated”
• Leverage the power of insight to make educated selections of solutions with access to feedback from a community of peers and business process experts, customer adoption success stories and proven solutions that meet their business needs
• Engage in a trusted environment to schedule a solution demo on SAP EcoHub with an SAP partner, request more information on any partner solution, verify the solution certification and integration details, and initiate purchase of a solution

“Customers consider many elements beyond price when evaluating software options to complement their existing installation,” said Henry Morris, senior vice president of worldwide software and services, IDC. “With the spread of social networking into the enterprise, customers will look for a Web site that incorporates feedback from their peers on the merits of specific solutions. SAP EcoHub provides access to a community of fellow SAP customers, combining user feedback with partner demos and partner lists, enabling an informed buying decision.”

Recognizing an opportunity to drive additional success for companies with SAP installations, SAP has built a robust ecosystem of customers and partners that collaborate closely to develop offerings that deliver maximum value and drive further innovation. Through interactive communities such as SAP Developer Network (SDN), the Business Process Expert (BPX) community and Industry Value Networks, SAP customers and partners exchange ideas, discuss needs and identify solutions to augment their SAP installations or identify opportunities for co-innovation on new solutions. SAP’s customer-centric approach to its ecosystem has resulted in more valuable offerings provided by partners, increased innovation among community members and breakthrough results for customers. SAP EcoHub is the culmination of this ecosystem effort and is the marketplace of choice for customers and partners to connect for success.

“SAP EcoHub is a natural extension of SAP’s strategic design and thoughtful execution of our customer-focused ecosystem,” said Zia Yusuf, executive vice president, Global Ecosystem and Partner Group, SAP AG. “Rather than a one-size-fits-all-approach, we have designed a marketplace that customers can be confident has offerings chosen for them that will work well with their SAP installations and help them run their business better. Complementary third-party solutions, an engaged community and opportunities for co-innovation are core to ultimate success for our customers. SAP EcoHub exemplifies this strategy and is yet another offering that makes it easier for our customers to experience the multitude of benefits of SAP and partner solutions.”

More than 16,000 SAP customers, partners and technical experts are convening at SAP® TechEd 2008 to learn how to transform existing business processes and IT landscapes and take advantage of the power and flexibility of service-oriented architecture. Celebrating its 12th anniversary, SAP’s largest ecosystem education event of the year offers more than 1,000 hours of lecture-driven and hands-on sessions. SAP TechEd 2008 was held in Las Vegas on September 8–12, and is being held in Berlin on October 14–16, Shanghai on November 5–6 and Bangalore on November 12–14.

SAP is the world’s leading provider of business software(*), offering applications and services that enable companies of all sizes and in more than 25 industries to become best-run businesses. With approximately 75,000 customers (includes customers from the acquisition of Business Objects) in over 120 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges, including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE, under the symbol “SAP.”

(*) SAP defines business software as comprising enterprise resource planning and related applications.

Source: SAP